JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Breast cancer has become one of the main public health problems all around the world, especially in Central America and Mexico. Self-exploration and early diagnosis are the best ways to look after this type of cancer. In Mexico and Central America, as in many other countries, breast cancer prevention and control activities are performed permanently; but, there are no comprehensive public reports that could provide information on the policies that originated the programs, the number, type, and scope of these activities as well as the impact of the performed programs and actions.

Objective:

Therefore, this document’s goal is to present the design of a Scoping Review protocol about the policies and action programs for breast cancer care in Mexico and Central America, as well as its objectives and implementation plan.

Methods:

This Scoping Review protocol was developed on the basis of the methodological reference framework of Arksey and O’Malley (2005). A systematic search of the following electronic databases will be performed: MEDLINE (PubMed), MEDLINE (EbscoHost), CINAHL (EbscoHost), Academic Search Complete (EbscoHost), ERIC, ISI Web of Science (Science Citation Index) in English, Cochrane, and MEDES-MEDicina in Spanish. The time scope of the search will be from 2000 trough 2018.

Results:

Since the data will not be obtained from primary sources, the approval of an ethics and research committee is not necessary. Data will be analyzed and presented in descriptive statistics and qualitative content analyses with analysis matrixes and semantic networks. The intention is to present the results to health authorities, conferences and publish them in an indexed journal.

Conclusions:

According to this proposal, we present a protocol for a Scoping Review-type literature revision based on the Arksey and O’Malley (2005) methodology during the first semester of 2019. According to this five-stage methodology, we will identify the scientific publications that present or analyze first-level action policies and programs for Breast Cancer care in Mexican women, as well as their results, if any. The outcome of this review will be used to define the bases of a research project intended to design an educational intervention strategy for the general public in Mexico, in order to deal with this important public health problem.